Turner, Gallego, Grijalva, Sanders in Phoenix

I’ve been trying to get back to the conversation since Donald Trump became our president. I thought the craziness of the election might have discredited the conversation as well as our political participation. I tried several times to address this but I couldn’t get it straight until I attended the Phoenix town hall held by Nina Turner, Ruben Gallego, Raul Grijalva, and Bernie Sanders. It helped me see that the political process is not separate from the conversation. It’s just a more hectic, compacted version. Elections cram the conversation into one or two years. On the other hand, they never end. They just change gears.

I knew we would have to talk for generations but that perspective was easy to forget when we came so close in the election. The obstacles in any election are close-up and personal, and sometimes disturbing, but a conversation without the electoral process would just be noise.

This probably seems too obvious to mention for those who have moved on, but for me it is an important distinction. A good conversation makes everything seem possible; an election like the one we just had makes everything seem impossible. I would say that in this particular election one of the main tactics was to demonstrate futility. However we knew things were bad before we started and believe or not, we’re still on track. As conversations go, the election of 2016 was an amazing victory. I recommend watching the Phoenix town hall.